


Gone Fishin'

by broadwayturtle



Category: Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, mermaid, merman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-11 13:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7054336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadwayturtle/pseuds/broadwayturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It started with a week’s worth of empty fishing hooks.</i><br/>(Modern AU in which Slim is a mermaid/selkie type of thing. Just fluff for now, but it may change later.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fish Thief

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys!! SO, for those of you who have been around my Slim/George obsession from the start, you know that I had a couple modern AUs planned for our favorite gay cowboys, including a mermaid one, and guess what? Here it is! Enjoy! And a shoutout to my friends Arc, Jen, (for helping me bounce ideas), and Anu (for always believing in me and gushing over my writing)!!

It started with a week’s worth of empty fishing hooks.

 

George had no idea what was causing it, but it was driving him _crazy_. For the past week, every time he went fishing, he’d come back empty-handed. He wouldn’t have minded (after all, sometimes the fish just don’t bite), had it not been for the fact that it was obvious something had _stolen_ his bait. Not only that, but the same something seemed to strike only after a fish was on the line. He’d feel a tug--a very distinctive pull that told him a fish was on his hook--but the moment he’d start to reel it in, the pressure would leave and he’d be left with only scraps of bait, if he was _lucky_. He guessed it was some sort of clever (or maybe just lucky) predator who’d figured out how to get past fishing hooks, so it’s not like it was the poor animal’s fault, but that didn’t stop him from being pissed as all hell.

It wasn’t even just about the fish. This was his only time to relax after feeling suffocated in a job that forced him to talk and shove his anger down all day; most of the time he just threw the fish back. It wasn’t about keeping them, it was about the peace and quiet of sitting in his boat and the sense of fulfillment when he managed to catch something. Now that sense of peace was taken from him and as a week wore on into two weeks, his patience was gone. Perhaps it was the pent-up stress that made him so irrationally angry at an unwitting sea creature, but eventually he decided he was going to _catch that little fish-thieving motherfucker_ and maybe scare it into hunting elsewhere.

 

Fast-forward to the day of the plan.

It was perfect.

…ish.

George took his boat out to the offending (previously favorite) area and set the trap. It consisted of a fake fish covered in a bunch of hidden hooks, a net (in case the fish didn't work), and…well, strength. He threw the fake fish into the water and waited…and soon, he felt a tug. A _strong_  tug. _Way_ too strong to be the size of fish George had in mind. Still, short of letting his entire fishing rod drop into the water, he didn't have many options except to pull as hard as he could.

 

Fast-forward past ten minutes of struggling and almost capsizing, and here he was, with the bloodied, exhausted culprit in his boat.

It was _human_.

…ish.

He knew there was a word for what was right in front of him, but at the moment he was too shocked to remember.

“Aaaaah oh god!” George scrambled backwards as far as he could in his tiny boat and stared, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at the creature before him with hooks in its hands and lips. He knew there was a word for what—who?—was right in front of him, but his mind was completely blank.

At the end of its—his?—torso was a long, brown tail with freckled stripes. Said tail was flailing wildly and on the verge of tipping the boat, so naturally George tried to pin it down. He was promptly slapped in the face by a powerful, soaking wet tail. 

“Ow! Hey!” George struggled to the man-fish’s end of the boat and straddled him, holding his terrified face in his hands. “Hey,” he repeated, but more gently this time. “It’s okay, yer all right, I’m gonna help ya. Okay? But you gotta stop freakin’ out on me.”

The fish-man seemed to understand—if not the words, then the tone of his voice—and calmed down, still staring at George with fearful eyes. Quickly, George took a set of pliers from his tackle box and removed the hooks, starting with the one on the creature-person’s mouth. They weren’t too badly embedded, so it was as easy as grabbing the hook from the bend, pressing down on the eye, and twisting his wrist in its direction. He did the same for the rest, carefully putting the bloody fish back in the tackle box.

“I’m sorry,” George murmured, looking guiltily into the fish-person’s eyes. “I’m real sorry, buddy, I swear…”

The person-creature stared at George for a couple of moments, then down at his hands, then back at George again. He made a few clicking noises that George didn’t understand. He looked…confused. When it was clear that George wasn’t going to understand his question, he wiggled away, using his arms to catapult himself back into the water.

And that was that.

When George rested his shaky legs on his bed that night, he finally remembered the real word for “man-fish”.

 _Holy shit, George…_ he thought as he stared blankly at the ceiling.

_You just caught yourself a fucking merman_.


	2. Slim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friendship is achieved. Names are exchanged. _Wow_ this fanfic is slow as hell lol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to my friends for helping me bounce ideas and edit my paragraphs (Matty, Arc, and Fry...even tho we haven't gotten to all the ideas we bounced yet)! And thanks to all my other friends for always supporting me and dragging me out of my self-loathing writer moments.
> 
> And of course, thanks to you guys for reading! I hope y'all have as much fun reading it as I did writing it! c:

George went to work the next day as if nothing happened, because really, what else could he do? He sat in his cubicle, answered countless calls, made nice with his coworkers. Tried to brush off his experience as a strange hallucination from stress. Held back his annoyance at amazingly stupid customers. Ate his lunch. Answered calls. Yawned. Sighed. Took a break. Made more idle small talk with his coworkers. _Remembered how he’d caught a fucking merman_. Took more calls and shoved down more anger, until finally the day was done.

Exhausted and still mildly bewildered over the incident, he decided to go fishing anyway. He chose a different spot this time, but—lo and behold—the same thing happened that’d been happening for almost a month now. This time though, it was different. This time he felt a violent  _yank_ instead of a ghostly emptiness, and he couldn’t even bring himself to be angry. Sighing, he reeled in the line, gently put his fishing rod down, and lay on his back. He stayed staring up at the sky like that for what must have been ten minutes, until he caught movement in the corner of his eye. It was, of course, the merman. He had his hands on the edge of the boat and a dead fish in his mouth. He was, quite reasonably, _furious,_ glaring at George with an unapologetic intensity.

Huh. 

So he _hadn’t_ just imagined it all.

George sighed again. "Look, I'm real sorry, all right? It was stupid what I did. Even if ya _had_ been a fish, it was a shitty thing to do." He paused, frowning thoughtfully at the angry man with the fish in his mouth before turning his head to look at the sky again. "Ah, hell. It ain't like you know what I'm sayin' anyway."

When he turned back, the merman was gone.

He almost didn't go back to the beach the next day, but work had been particularly stressful and he needed to unwind. If all else failed, George figured could just sit on the shore and watch the waves.

As expected, the fish thief showed up again, with eyes full of triumphant fire and a mouth full of stolen fish. And just like the previous day, George just sighed and laid down, defeated. This happened again and again until eventually both of them got used to it. After a while the merman seemed to warm up to George, even sitting in the boat and clicking excitedly when George would catch a fish. They fell into a routine, with George talking idly about whatever was on his mind and tossing his new friend whatever fish he did manage to catch that day. Sometimes there was nothing on both counts and they'd sit in silence, taking in the waves and the slowly setting sun. It was on one of those quiet days that George had a minor epiphany and decided to voice it to his new friend. When the merman came up from catching two fish and dumping them on the boat, George spoke.

"Y'know, I just realized I never gave you my name. And I don't know yours neither."

The fish person flopped his tail gently, nibbling on his catch. He showed no signs of understanding beyond a simple blank stare.

"Do you even have a name? You only make clicking noises. Like a dolphin or somethin'. I think dolphins have names."

More eating. More stares of the completely blank variety.

"Anyway, my name's George. George Milton."

George watched him eat for a while. He felt a bit silly, telling his name to someone who wouldn't understand it, but it still felt nice to get it out there and pretend his friend understood. By the time George spoke up again, the sea person had moved on to his second fish.

"...Boy, you sure can eat. That's yer fourth one in, like, 20 minutes." George smiled as he watched the ocean man concentrate intently on eating a whole raw fish. It was actually kind of adorable, if one ignored the blood and viscera dripping down his chin. Suddenly George cracked a huge, knowing grin.

"All right, I got an idea! I can't keep callin' you fishman or merman or buddy or friend. You gotta have a name, right?"

His sea friend cocked his head in confusion. He seemed to recognize a question being asked, but still didn't understand.

"I can't very well call ya Fatass, 'cause you ain't actually fat. You just eat like ya are." He snorted. "I'll settle for the next best thing."

He threw the remains of the first fish back into the ocean, still grinning when he turned back to look at his sea friend.

"Yeah," he verbally agreed with himself before saying it.

 

"I'll call you Slim."


	3. George

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Speech is achieved. Heavy ship teasing without anything actually happening oops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Die of Alcohol Poisoning, The Drinking Game: Take a shot every time George's name is written in this fic.

George rested his hand on his chin and squinted at Slim, another minor epiphany forming in his mind.

 

 “…Could I teach you how to talk?” As always, he was met with only a curious silence. He glared a bit more before continuing his train of thought. "...How do I even teach a whole language to someone who doesn't understand it?"

 

For the rest of their time together he was silent, racking his brain for ways of teaching a completely unfamiliar language to a completely unfamiliar species. At the end of the day, he mussed up Slim's hair and tilted his head toward the sea like he always did, watched him leave, and then revved up his engine to get back to shore. The next day he decided to try one of his ideas. It wasn't the best one, but he figured he should get it out of the way.

 

"All right..." George muttered to himself as Slim hopped onto the boat. "Here goes nothin'." He took a deep breath, expecting...well, not much really.

 

"Now, I don't know if you understand me, but I'm gonna try ta teach you how ta say my name. I dunno. Maybe it'll work."

Slim frowned in intense concentration, though half of that was probably him just mimicking George's expression.

"All right. Okay." George sharply pointed at himself, punctuating each sentence with another point. "My name's George. _George_. Can you say it? _George_."

Slim squinted hard, leaning perilously forward as he stared. He looked like his brain could explode at any minute. Just as George was about to give up, Slim finally broke the silence.

 

"A-aaaah...uhh." His voice was deep and smooth, even with the slight hoarseness from never having used it before.

George's eyes widened. He couldn't stop the elated laughter that rose up from his chest.

"Holy _shit_ , Slim! Holy shit, it's not a click!!!" He nearly capsized the boat when he jumped up in disbelief. It was little more than a groan, but it was so much more than a click and surely it meant _something_ , surely it meant he could _learn_ , right?! George quickly sat back down, still grinning. Slim was grinning with him, an excited open-mouthed grin that seemed to say, "Hey, we're excited? Oh okay, cool, we're excited!"

 

" _George_ ," he said again, this time with both hands on his chest. Slim frowned again, the smile slowly fading off his face.

"Aaahhh...ahh."

"No, _George_. Juh. Orj."

"...Juuuuhhhh."

"Yes! Yes, you've got it! _Juh. Orj. George_."

"Jyuuuuuuurrrzhsh. Zhurszh?" Slim looked proud of himself.

"Close! Hohhh, so close!" They were literally close too; in their excitement, they'd both leaned completely into one another's personal space. George repeated his name.

"Orgsh." There was a little click in the middle of it, making it obvious that Slim wasn't used to using his vocal cords in this way.

"No no, like the last time. But different. _Geeeeeooooooorrrrrrrgggge_." He extended his name dramatically, hoping it would help.

"Jyooooorrr..."

"Yeah, _exactly_ , keep goin'!"

"George!"

" _Hahaaaahhh_!! Yes!!" George squished Slim's face in his hands and hugged him. To his surprise, Slim hugged back; he made a vague mental note that mermaids had that in common with humans. When they let go, Slim gently laid his hand on George's chest.

 

"George."

George smiled warmly. "Yeah. That's me."

Slim pointed to the boat.

"George."

"Uh...no. That's a boat."

Slim stared blankly at him, pointing again at the boat.

"George."

 

This...was gonna take some work.


End file.
